Tarzan, Lord of the Bad Musicals

Remember last week when we took a tour of hairless nearly naked ape men to celebrate Tarzan's opening? Well... it was just an excuse to take a tour of hairless nearly naked ape men really. I didn't mean to celebrate the Broadway musical. I just wanted to clarify in case that post read like an endorsement. Because the new musical?

It.

Sucks.


I didn't even pay to see it and I want my money back.

I can't emphasize its suckitude strongly enough. If you're a tourist and you're thinking Disney + something I've heard of + fun night at the theater, please please please think again. If it has to be Disney go see Lion King again (but better yet see real musical theater like the hilarious Drowsy Chaperone or the brilliance of Sweeney Todd. The first 5 minutes of Tarzan, which is basically the shipwreck prologue, features truly great visual effects work. But that's before the songs and the story starts. My favorite part of the show was probably seeing the people ushered in after the prologue. If you're late to a show you have to wait until some sort of break to take your seat. In this case that's harsh punishment for tardiness because you've missed the best part. The rest of the two and half hours is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e. But if you're late, it's your own damn fault. Don't be late to the theater. There's live actors on stage. They can see you being rude to them.

I don't even know where to start. Over-amped lengthy dreadful songs which don't know how to move the story, they just repeat the book. Hideous set (or lack thereof). Almost impossibly lame dialogue. Uncomfortable performances. The lighting received the show's only Tony nomination and you can see why --there are a few moments that work due to their lighting effects but the nomination still should've gone to Sweeney Todd which uses its harsh red light to considerably more dramatic effect than this show uses it's Wicked-inspired purples and greens.

The thing I found most confusing was that whoever created the whole shipwreck sequence also must have designed the rest of the show and that's just weird because the rest is garish or cheap looking. In one moment late in the first act, a giant spider enters the set hoping to feast on Jane. I suddenly flashed back to my high school float construction party (that's how amateurish the giant spider looks). There I am trying to watch a 15 million dollar Broadway show and all I can think about is building the float with my buddies Linda, Christine, Therese, and Annette!

Thinking about my high school girls is way more fun than sitting through the show so perhaps I shouldn't complain about the mnemonic mishap.

tags: Tarzan, Broadway, theater, movies, musicals,